The Cost of Discipleship

Text: Luke 14:25-35
Full Sermon Draft

Luke 12 to 14 is tough to preach on in the current context. Even the “easy” text of Luke 12:22-34 if you are preaching it in context is not so easy. I think most of us here those words and immediately think – “ok, this Jesus thing isn’t going to mess up my life, don’t worry, I can still have my stuff.” And that is almost exactly the opposite of the intention. A disciple is to be a fearless witness (Luke 12:4-12), and the assumed context of witness is persecution. Jesus is heading to Jerusalem and the cross. In the midst of that, don’t worry, your Father takes care of the sparrow, right? So keep walking. All these things that might be taken away here, will be added in abundance in the Kingdom. (Luke 12:31-34)

Then you careen through “not peace, but division (Luke 12:49ff)”, “the barren fig tree”, “the narrow door”, “Jerusalem’s hardness of heart”, “the great banquet – where the invitation are cast off for meaningless excuses”, and it culminates in this text.

Sometimes Jesus sees a crowd and his gut is churned because the are like sheep without a shepherd. But just as often Jesus gathers a crowd, he turns and says something that causes most to flee or go home. I’m importing that more full account from John 6:52-71, but you can take Luke and observe the lessons Jesus teaches when he turns toward the crowds. This would seem to be one of those second crowds. We are on the way to Jerusalem, to the cross, he thinks we should know.

Why it is tough, it because of the quote from Dr. Beck at the start of the sermon. The church today operates on a different model than the early church. The church today gathers crowds and tries to keep them no matter what. Oh it tries to encourage them to places and things where spiritual growth can occur, but what it never does intentionally is what Jesus does – spell out our spiritual state. That is left for you to intuit. The church at different times would force a counting of the cost first. Are your priorities Kingdom priorities? If you don’t hate the best things in your life (wife, husband, family, job) when they get in the way of your walk with Jesus, you can’t be a disciple.

In that counting is also the grace. Like Peter realized when others turned away – “Where shall we go, you have the words of eternal life.” This is Jesus at his most Protestant. You have a choice to make – the hard narrow path to life or the easy path to destruction. And once you choose, don’t turn back – because what good is salt that has lost its saltiness? Where can it be re-salted?

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The means of grace are for those who need it.

Luke 14:1-14
Full Sermon Draft

There is one big difference between the world say pre-1750 and post-1750. Now that date is rough and the change not uniformly distributed, but what I’m really pointing out is a change with the Enlightenment. A pre-enlightenment mindset could look at events in the world or things right in front of you and see a larger sign. Another way you might describe this is that the universe as enchanted. You could swing to extremes, like the purchase of amulets and other charms to ward off all the things that go bump in the night. And all that stuff is actually what the bible comes down harshly on – see Paul in Ephesus (Acts 19:17-20) or see the story of Saul (1 Samuel 28:3ff) or look at the law (Lev 20:27, Deu 18:1-12) where the practice of such things is placed alongside child sacrifice. But there is a different form of enchantment that was thrown out with that superstition. The bible would just call it having ears to hear, or eyes to see. Jesus would complain that his contemporaries could read the signs of upcoming weather, but they couldn’t read the important signs right in front of their noses (Luke 13:54-56).

That is what is happening in the text of Luke across these chapters and our text is another example. The man’s illness, dropsy, is a sign. The Pharisees are intending it as one sign, but Jesus is reading it rightly. This is a great example of the prophetic office. The prophet could tell the future but what the prophets of Israel really did was read the signs for the people. Jesus tells then parables that illuminate the real purpose of the sign.

What the reading of the sign, the observation of an enchanted universe, is really about is a call to examination of personal conscience. Where have I fallen short? How is God calling me back to the path? Because the grace and mercy of God, the invitation to he feast, goes out to the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind. Jesus eats with sinners. The means of grace are for those who need it. If you don’t need the healing (or more truthfully don’t think you need healing) they are not for you. What this sermon attempts to do is read some signs…and then issue an invitation.

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Walking to Jerusalem/Marching to Zion

Luke 13:22-30
Full Draft of Sermon

I received more comments about this sermon than almost any in 5 years. The pessimist in me is saying “and you are going to pay for each one of those comments.”

In the worship service as a whole there was an interweaving of hymns and songs including one of my favorites, I Walk in Danger all the Way, Some of the VBS kids shared with us a couple of the songs from the week including “Stand Strong” and the one I reference in the Sermon Marching to Zion. But you don’t need that thicker worship setting to get the sermon.

The gospel point, the core of the text, is that it is Jesus alone who is walking to Jerusalem. And that walk ends outside the city walls. At the place of the skull. We can’t march into the city of God. We only enter through the narrow door, at the foot of the cross, through repentance. There is no “we” marching to Zion. The question is are you walking there? Is your walk with Jesus all the way?

The audio will be added later. Our guy who volunteers to convert the files (and has the stuff to actually do it) took a much deserved break. His son did the recording (thank you!), but the digital conversion is coming.

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Fire, Baptism, Peace and Division

Text: Luke 12:49-53
Full Sermon Draft

You don’t get much more raw than this text. This is the Jesus that tends to get submerged. This is the Jesus of a sign of contradiction (Luke 2:34, Acts 28:22). So much of Christianity and church has been scrubbed and sanitized, domesticated and made safe…and then you read passages like this. And if you are going to be apostolic and orthodox, you have to make room for them. You have to talk about fire and division. And you have to see them as good news, because it is passages like this that are at the core of the Christian proclamation. Repent, for the Kingdom of God is here. Settle before you are thrown in debtors prison until the last penny. (Luke 12:58ff)

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Living Into the Kingdom (aka Trusting the Father)

Biblical Text: Luke 12:22-34
Full Sermon Draft

In Luke 12:13-21, last week’s gospel lesson, we find Jesus addressing a parable to a man in the crowd. My rough meaning of the parable would be check your priority alignment. Are you directing permanent things, like your soul, toward impermanent things, like bigger barns? But then Jesus turns to his disciples, the stand-in for believers, and gives them a different lesson. Luke 12:22-34 is linked to the previous lesson because Jesus says “therefore or on account of this” referencing back to the parable he has just told. If the unbeliever is given the advice to check their priorities, the believer is given an invitation. Not only just to seek the kingdom but also to live into it. And Jesus spells out what that looks like.

First, it is a living trust in the Character of the Father. You can discern that character through natural revelation analogies. The Providence of the Father gloriously cares for the raven and Lilly. Is he going to stiff you? You can also see that character revealed in Jesus Christ. The revelation reduced to one fact is the resurrection. Even though this mortal flesh goes the way of the lilly, the Father will clothe you with something greater, the resurrection body. The Father has chosen to give you the kingdom, trust Him for it.

Second, what does one who trusts in the fullness of the kingdom do? They put the temporal things, the impermanent things, at the service of the permanent. The world does the opposite spending life in the quest for the material. Jesus says give away the material, give to the poor, to get treasure in heaven (i.e. from the Father). Both would call the other the bigger fool.

The case rests on the character of the Father. Is the Father a figment and we are alone? Or is the Father revealed to us in Jesus Christ? Where your treasure is, there is your heart. Is it in that new BMW, or is it in the body of Christ?

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Rich – What Does this Mean?

Sermon Draft

I was on vacation this past week starting last Sunday. So I was out of the pulpit, and I’m catching up. Here is the sermon from last week written and given by our head elder. I better watch out or I’ll be out of a job.

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And Just Who is ‘Father’?

Biblical Text: Luke 11:1-13
Full Draft of SermonThe

The Lord’s Prayer in Luke has a different context and a different emphasis than it does in Mathew. Even though our liturgical prayer comes from Mathew, the context of the liturgy before Communion, is more like Luke. The focus of the prayer itself is the petition “give us each day our daily bread”. But the context of the prayer focuses on revealing just who it is we are praying to – Father.

This sermon is a little shorter than normal. The introduction addresses the reason. The events of the week highlight the first part on our daily bread and just how much “I need thee every hour”. The second portion is pure Gospel. Unlike us who are evil, the Father is holy. And that is what Jesus came to reveal – just who we are praying to.

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Where to sit?

Biblical Text: Luke 10:38-42
Full Draft of Sermon

Mary and Martha. That used to be the jumping off point for a bunch of buddy stories. But the text is not about a conflict of personality. The revisionist and womanist (or is it womynist) preacher makes great hay out of this text. Martha is the enforcer of accepted patriarchal social scripts which Mary chooses to ignore. Jesus backs up her choice securing her already grasped freedom. (Just to be clear, Mary moves first, Jesus just gives moral support). But that would seem to be majoring in minors – although there is enough truth you can’t just scoff.

The context is the help. Last week was the good Samaritan and in previous weeks the 70 were sent out and great things are happening. The whole contingent is on the move. They are doing great things. The disciples, and us the reader, could be forgiven for taking the point of the Christian life as being a heroic do-gooder. And then we see the ultimate do gooder. Martha is serving everyone…and Mary just sits. Jesus, do you mean what you’ve been saying?

Like Martha, the church is full of care and distracted by all the things that need taken care of. And there will be plenty of opportunity to serve. Nobody ever gets in your way when you don the role of the servant. But the world, the devil and our own flesh will labor mightily to keep us from the Word. Service not grounded first and firmly in the Word of God is just so much trouble. The one needful thing – the one thing that we can’t go without is the Word. And that is typically presented as a choice. Do we choose the feet of the Jesus, or our cares? Everything else shall pass away, but what is done at the foot of the cross will never be taken away.

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Neighborhood Watch

Biblical Text: Luke 10:25-37
Full Sermon Draft

I am constantly amazed at how the perfect text seems to appear to match external circumstances. What are the odds that the one time in three years that you read the Good Samaritan with its question of “Who is my neighbor?” would appear at exactly the same time as a verdict in a trial of a Neighborhood watch. A trial which is really about answering that question – who is the neighbor?

This is one of those sermons that stands as piece. It is a meditation on the gospel scene of a lawyer and Jesus with our lives woven in between the lines.

Here is the conclusion, but if you’ve got 12 minutes, give the entire thing a read or a listen. I’m pretty sure that none of the 24 hour news commentary has this.

The law can’t do anything about our refusal to see our neighbor. The law leaves a dead 17 year old and a man whose life has been beaten and robbed and left out in the open of the public square. If we insist on the law – what must I do – that is what we get. But Jesus, by being a neighbor to us first, has shown us a better way. A way of grace and mercy. Go and love likewise, as you have first been loved. Amen

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Reaping and Sowing (The Gospel Lived…)

Text: Galatians 6:1-18
Full Sermon Draft

This was the final installment of the series on Galatians. In chapter 6 of Galatians Paul does two things. In the sermon I reversed the order in the sermon because it makes more sense for a congregation or someone listening for the first time. First Paul gives a concrete glimpse of what living the Gospel looks like. He does that using three images:
1) The image of confession and absolution. We all fall and all need to be restored.
2) The contrasting of images of the burden of the labor of day and the load of a ship’s cargo. One we are to help carry for each other. The other we carry ourselves into the final port. The quick summary of this contrast would seem to be: Be quick to take part with the people of God in the work of the Kingdom, while watching and maintaining your personal spiritual life regardless of the work of others.
3) The image he dwells on the most is sowing and reaping.

Paul applies sowing and reaping to three places:
1) Ministry – What does this gospel look like? A shared ministry where the teaching of the word is supported and respected.
2) Personal Holiness – The harvest starts with what you sow. Sow to yourself, and you will reap destruction. Sow to virtue and you will reap eternal life.
3) Good Works (the outgrowth of personal holiness) – If you are well taught and active in the word, if you are sowing to the Spirit through virtue, we do not tire of doing good – first at home with the family of faith and then to others.

After his concrete statement on the gospel lived, Paul returns to his major points: Apostleship, grace and Walking in the Spirit.

I started the sermon with some personal pondering. I probably should have cut it out as not really on point, but Paul’s swift conclusion got me pondering those things. Paul gets to the end and what do you say? How do you end an address on the Christian life. (Galatians may very well have been the first such letter ever written). Elsewhere Paul collapses into greet so-and-so and laundry lists of good wishes. Here, he concludes simply with what we know as the apostolic greeting: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen. (Gal 6:18 ESV)” Which in the context I take as a sending. Go live the Gospel. God live by grace through the spirit. In that faith and in that Spirit, brothers and sisters. We want so much tied up neatly. But so much of the Christian life – the freedom of the Gospel – is untidy. Go live it. Fail at it. Come back for repentance and absolution. And try again. But in the midst of that struggle we have peace. The Lord Jesus Christ bought it on the cross and now lives and reigns to all eternity. What are our struggles compared to that?

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